Agenda item

To receive an update from Andrea Clemons, Head of Community Safety.

Andrea Clemons Head of Community Safety presented this report.

NOTED:

i)             Andrea thanked the Committee for the opportunity to provide the performance update. She reminded Members that it is framed to support Enfield’s Partnership Plan (4 years – 2017-2021). She said that tonight’s update would focus on the challenges faced.

ii)            The report analyses the five priorities identified in the Borough of Enfield and discusses the performance compared to other London boroughs.

iii)           The measures reflect the priorities in our own Partnership Plan which are:

·         Reducing burglary and keeping people safe at home;

·         Tackling violent crime – in all its forms

·         Keeping young people safe and reducing their risks from crime;

·         Promoting cohesion and tackling hate crime;

·         Dealing with anti-social behaviour.

iv)           The report demonstrates progress in crime figures against the five bulleted priorities above.

v)            Total Notifiable Offences in Enfield have increased by 8.2% in the year ending December 2019. In London, there has been a larger increase of 8.5% in the same period.

vi)           Residential burglaries in Enfield have increased by 11.7% in the year ending December 2019. Enfield is significantly above London levels, where there was a 0.6% decrease in the same period.

vii)          Enfield is a large borough with an estimated 131,707 households (GLA Estimates 2017) which equates to a rate of 21 residential burglaries in the last year per 1000 households in Enfield, compared to 18 residential burglaries in our neighbouring borough Haringey.

viii)        Over the last year, Enfield has followed a similar pattern in residential burglaries as recorded in the capital. From September 2019 there was a sharp increase in offences in Enfield following the seasonal trend, however, in Enfield and London this trend decreases in December 2019.

ix)           Enfield remains the 2^nd highest borough in London for Serious Youth Violence (SYV) victims and has increased by 29.8% in the year ending December 2019, compared to the last year. Enfield remains above London recording a smaller increase of 9.5% in the same period.

x)            The borough of Enfield recorded the second highest number of Serious Youth Violence victims out of all 32 London boroughs, notably ahead of our bordering borough Haringey recording 398 victims (Enfield recorded 501 victims). Enfield is marginally behind the borough of Westminster, the highest borough in the capital, recording 560 victims in the same period.

xi)           On average, Enfield recorded 42 serious youth violence victims a month in the last year, equating to just over one victim per day.

xii)          Enfield has the 4^th largest youth population aged 1-19 in London accounting for just over a quarter of the total population. When considering the rate of SYV per 1000 population aged 1-19, Enfield recorded a rate of 6 victims over the last year, the same rate as boroughs with smaller populations such as Haringey, Islington and Hammersmith and Fulham.

xiii)        A thematic map was discussed detailing the distribution of Serious Youth Violence victims by ward in Enfield in the year January 2019 to December 2019. Over the year, the three highest wards had been Town, Edmonton Green and Enfield Highway.

xiv)        Domestic Abuse Violence with Injury has increased in Enfield by 4% in the year to December 2019. Offences have remained steady over the last three months between October and December 2019.

xv)         ASB calls have increased in Enfield by 5.6% in the year ending December 2019, compared to the same period in the previous year. In London there has been a larger increase of 13.8% in the same period.

xvi)        Andrea then went through each of the further priorities in detail and provided figures, data and the proposed measures for each one.

The following questions and comments were raised:

·         The number one priority in Enfield is keeping young people safe. Many are already vulnerable to being groomed in drug and gang crime, including County Lines because of childhood issues and adverse childhood experiences.

·         Work is taking place with the GLA’s Violent Reduction Unit to put together some additional tactics and preventative strands with a view to identifying the criminals at the top of the drug/gang trees, who then use their positions to exploit young people.

·         A Strategic Assessment is currently being developed to obtain a picture and understanding of what the problems are, when they are occurring and who’s involved. Information is being obtained from various sources such as the Police, London Ambulance Service (LAS) as well as the Council.

·         Once this Strategic Assessment is in place recommendations will then be made to refresh the Community Plan. It was felt that Enfield’s priorities will remain the same with the possible addition of something more around drugs as there is currently insufficient information regarding this issue in relation to things such as cost, where the drugs can be bought etc. We need to get back to the basics around this issue as it is just not acceptable to fuel a drug market which encourages child exploitation.

·         Discussions took place around transport links and how this impacted on the levels of crime in certain wards in the borough. For instance, Southgate ward is an attraction as is Enfield Town centre due to the good transport links into these areas. Southgate ward is certainly an area of growing interest however, there is a lot of work going on there for example Business Watch and conversations have also taken place regarding a community patrol in the area.

·         Councillor Anderson felt that the tables included in the report did not provide sufficient data to enable an honest picture of what is actually occurring in the borough. He suggested that reports needed to include more context (for example comparisons/population data) to support and demonstrate the exact picture and situation as the way the data is currently recorded could be misread and misleading. He felt that it would be useful to include data on police heads per numbers of population as this would allow for a better understanding of police allocations. He also felt that it was imperative that reports are produced in a clear and concise manner, especially avoiding the use of acronyms to ensure that all reports are easy for everyone to read and understand.

Andrea agreed to add population and comparative data in relation to the charts in future reports.

Action: Andrea Clemons, Head of Community Safety

·         Councillor Chris Dey responded to Councillor Anderson’s comments and, although he agreed with the points raised he felt that the real question should be what is being done to address the increase in crime in the borough as regardless of how the data is recorded, looking at the figures as a whole, the numbers are unacceptable. There is therefore an urgent need to do something to tackle this situation and reduce these figures in 2020.

Andrea responded by advising that there is lots of work taking place including putting extra resources into Youth Services (£500k) as well as an additional £1m investment in CCTV in the borough. Bids have also been made to fund 22 projects to tackle Serious Youth Violence and further bids have been made to the Home Office and the GLA to bolster resources.

·         The Chair said it was concerning to see Enfield in the top quarter for its SSCB priorities for another year and it was crucial to break this cycle. He welcomed the light touch Strategic Assessment that Andrea had referred to and said that it would be interesting to see the outcome of this.

Andrea advised that the Safer & Stronger Communities Board (SSCB) will meet on 2^nd April 2020 and it was hoped that a close draft of the Strategic Assessment would then be available. It would be at this point that we would then look at whether we are going to set reduction targets. Any targets set however would need to align with those set by the Metropolitan police.

Superintendent Chris Jones added that he is taking a fresh look at working collaboratively with Andrea and the Community Safety Team. He said that he will have personally failed if he comes back before this committee in twelve months’ time and the figures are the same or higher. He was confident however that there will be a reduction in the crime figures across Enfield.

·         The Enfield Youth Parliament Representative said that there was not enough advertising of the youth services that are already available, and he felt that better advertising would encourage use amongst young people in the borough.

Andrea said that Enfield Council are now more pro-active in advertising council youth service provisions. Following recent conversations with the Youth Services Department Andrea had been advised that details of summer clubs and youth clubs had been updated on Enfield Council’s website. She would ensure that this link was included in the minutes of this meeting.

Action: Andrea Clemons/Stacey Gilmour, Governance & Scrutiny Secretary

*Post Meeting Note*

Summer clubs and Youth Clubs website link as agreed.

https://new.enfield.gov.uk/youth/events-and-activities/

·         Councillor Dey had recently attended a public meeting set up by the local community group, Love Your Doorstep Enfield. This had been a great meeting and he had been most impressed to see many people in the audience who wanted to get involved in proactive community work. A member of the audience had also offered to carry out some ‘social mapping’ work and Cllr Dey said he would forward these details to Andrea as they may be useful.

Action: Councillor Dey/Andrea Clemons

Andrea concluded her update by saying that the increase in Serious Youth Violence is a persistent and tragic problem and collaborative working needed to continue in order to bring these numbers down. Community input and engagement is key to achieving this.

The Chair thanked Andrea for her informative report and looked forward to receiving future updates.